


In the Bleak Midwinter

by sparrow2000



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:28:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21905221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrow2000/pseuds/sparrow2000
Summary: Spike and Dru watch the sun rise on Christmas morning.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	In the Bleak Midwinter

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Joss and Mutant Enemy et al, own everything. I own nothing.  
> Comments and feedback are cuddled and called George  
> Beta extraordinaire: thismaz

**In the Bleak Midwinter**

The final rays of the sun are long gone as we settle on the cooling sand. Dru sits, legs outstretched, her skirt spread out like a sail ready to take her out to sea, off on her own mad voyage of discovery. I scoot in behind her, one leg on either side, cocooning, protecting, my arms tight around her waist and my chin resting on her shoulder. She has her hair up and her neck is pale and delicate, smelling of clove and cinnamon and musk where I kiss it.

Her feet are bare. She left her shoes and her coat and her carpet bag of tricks and treats at the edge of the beach. She says she doesn’t need them anymore. I have no words to argue with her and I tighten my grip, anchoring her, anchoring myself.

“Did you see the sun, my Spike?” she whispers. “Did you hear it singing?”

“Came too late to see the sun, princess. Didn’t hear its song. What was it singing, pet?”

“The song of the morning on the other side of the world. It has to let the moon serenade us while it goes calling.”

“Is that right?”

“I hear it in my dreams. So bright. So joyful it sings – ‘hark the herald’…”

I kiss her neck again. “I’m no angel, pet.” Even now, at this end, I won’t pretend.

She smiles. I can’t see her face, but I know she smiles for me, indulgent of my protest. “You’re my prince. My pauper. My Copperfield. My Pip.”

“Twain or Dickens, is that the choice, love?”

“Tom and Huck. The Artful Dodger and Oliver Twist – always wanting more.”

How well she knows me. Sometimes I love her for it, sometimes it’s more like hate. But there’s always passion between us, even now when every touch of my lips to her skin tastes of grief.

She sighs and her head lolls back on my shoulder. “Do you remember? Sitting on Christmas Eve, carol singers at the door, those merry gentlemen, remember how we helped them rest? We listened to the radiogram, following Scrooge and Marley’s ghost, dreaming of all the Christmases gone and all the ones to come.”

I kiss her cheek, imprinting her taste on my tongue. “I remember, dolly. Sitting with my best girl, mulled wine at our elbow, hosts at our feet, presents and garlands and chestnuts roasting on the fire. Good times.”

“Christmas carols and hymns, sweet boys in collars and gowns raising their voices to heaven.”

Her voice is soft, dreamy and I curl further around her, fusing my skin to hers, trying to be inside her, her heart, her head, her soul if she had one, if I had one. But I don’t need a soul to know this bright intimacy, this bone deep sorrow.

“Tell me about the carols, pet. Which ones did you love best?”

“So many to choose, to sing, to remember. ‘I Saw Three Ships’ - I wanted to sail away on a pirate ship. ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ - bright green and clinging vines, wrapping and snapping, berry bright for the birds. The Coventry Carol - singing lullabies to the babes, the broken babes.”

“Good tunes, except the last one. Bit mournful for my taste.”

She pulls herself up and looks over her shoulder, her eyes brilliant and feverish. “Can you guess my favourite?”

“Why don’t you tell me, poppet.”

Her smile dazzles and makes me want to weep. “Can’t you guess?” she says.

“Not sure if I can, love. We Three Kings? Twelve Days of Christmas? Ding Dong Merrily?”

She slumps back down into my arms and giggles. It shudders through me.

“None of those, silly.” She giggles again and begins to sing softly. “In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind may moan.”

“Dru…”

“Hush, my love and listen. ‘Earth stood harsh as iron, water like a stone.’”

She pushes away from my hold and stands tentatively, swaying as her toes curl, gripping into the cold sand. I want to get up, support her, persuade her to sit again and rest, but she puts her fingers to her lips and shakes her head. I settle back, curling my hands into the sand in return, connecting to her through this wet and bitter earth.

“Snow has fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow.” Her voice is sweet and plaintive and she raises her arms, worshiping the heavens, her fingers fluttering like snowflakes falling and my heart, unbeating, aches. I sit and I watch and I wait for her, just as I’ve done through all the days and years and decades of our headlong adventures together. Finally she sinks to her knees in front of me, her fingertips caressing my cheeks and she kisses me, her mouth sounding out the words against my lips. “‘In the bleak midwinter, long ago.’

“Do you understand, my love, my prince, my golden boy?”

“Don’t go, Dru. Don’t leave me.” I don’t want to say it. Swore I wouldn’t say it.

“I have to go, my sweet. There’s no Christmas future for me. No Marley’s pigtail waiting to be pulled. My snow has fallen, snow on snow, covering my ground, making me chill, hoarfrost in my bones. I need to follow the sun, my love. Follow its song as it wakes up the world.” She kisses me again, and her lips are cold as ice on the milk top of a winter’s morning. “You’re so bright, my Spike, my William. Effulgent. Do you remember?”

“I remember, love. Take me with you, like you did then. Please.” I wasn’t going to beg, but I left my pride on the edge of the sand, left it with her coat and her shoes and her bag of memories.

“It’s not your time yet. The moon and the stars still sing for you. Tell you their stories, their tales, their poems and their songs – Blue Moon, Pink Moon, Harvest Moon.” She smiles, sly and knowing, “Blood Moon.”

“I can’t hear the moon or the stars, pet. I need you to stay. Tell me what they’re saying.”

“You’ll know,” she says. “Time to go, precious. I hear the sky singing.”

I grip tight on her shoulders. I want to shake her, but even now, at this extremity, I’m careful of adding to her pain. This one pain she hasn’t sought. “I can’t leave you, love. I won’t go. We’ll go out together, yeah. Blaze of glory.”

“It’s not your time,” she repeats. “Time for you to shelter. Keep my memories. Keep them safe. Let them sing to you.”

“Dru, please…”

“Go,” she says, commands, demands and I stand, preparing to follow her direction, just as I’ve always done and I hate myself for being weak.

She kneels at my feet, glancing upwards, coy and sweet and full of history. Then she rises slowly, climbing me like a rose seeking sunlight until we’re face to face and she runs a trembling hand through my hair. “I’m sorry, my prince, my Pip. It hurts too much. The holly and the ivy, they prickle and prick. Time for me to find my ship. Time for me to step into the light.” She kisses me, tender and sweet and I wallow. “Go my love. Let me go.”

I go, against my will, my heart, but she whispers in my head, in every cell and sinew and when she commands me, I go. The walk up the beach is a million miles and it’s days, centuries, before I reach the ramshackle beach hut where her coat and her shoes and her carpet bag with all our history lie at my feet. I huddle in the shadows, the windblown sand on the broken boards beneath my feet and I shake as I watch her stand tall, arms outstretched, head back, resplendent. Strong at the last. I watch the sun rise on Christmas morning and she rejoices as all her hurts recede.

She burns and my heart burns with her.

I want to run down the beach, join her, follow her, but her voice carries back, ghostly on the bright dawn air, “not yet, my love, not yet.”

Sinking to the cold floor, on the edge of the shadows, playing chicken with the sunlight dancing on the sand, I wrap her coat around me like a shroud and sink into memories of my bright and shining girl, my ripe wicked plum and I laugh and I cry until darkness falls again and the Long Nights Moon rises in the blue, black sky.

Somewhere, in another time, another place, I know that the sun is rising, setting and rising again, and through each cycle, each season, each Christmas morning, Dru is dancing in the snow and her winters aren’t bleak anymore.


End file.
